Senate committee approves Jack Lew to be Treasury secretary

The World

You better like Jack Lew's signature, because he's getting one step closer to signing our dollar bills. The Senate Finance Committee voted today to back Lew to head the US Treasury. Lew is Barack Obama's nominee to head the Treasury and some Republicans still have deep reservations about him.  

With the 19-5 vote, about half of the Senate Committee's 11 Republicans opposed Lew's nomination, Reuters reported. Now, his nomination may be brought to the Senate floor for a final vote as early as Wednesday.

More from GlobalPost: Jack Lew nominated for US Treasury Secretary

Republican Orrin Hatch ended up voting for Lew despite "serious reservations," Agence France Presse reported. "I strongly disagree with Mr Lew on some significant policy issues — most notably, his decision to backtrack from the administration's previous position on the need for entitlement reform and his belief in the need for higher taxes," Hatch said in a statement.

Republican senators are suspicious of his work at Citigroup in the years leading up to the financial crisis, the Los Angeles Times reported. Lew was managing director and chief operating officer at Citi Global Wealth Management from 2006 to 2008 and at Citi Alternative Investments from 2008 to early 2009. Citigroup is one of the banks that suffered from risky housing bets and received a massive government bailout. 

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